Tour de France: Bauer denied on the line

Jack Bauer was inconsolable after his boyhood dream of a Tour de France stage win was snatched away. Picture: AFP/Getty

With team leader Andrew Talansky injured and gone, the Garmin-Sharp domestiques have been given a free ride on the Tour and Bauer almost made the most of the opportunity on yesterday’s 15th stage. The New Zealander formed the breakaway of the day with Swiss rider  Martin Elmiger of the IAM team and, after a tense finale, he was caught by the chasing bunch as the line approached.

“It’s just a bitter, bitter disappointment. It’s a childhood dream to win a stage of the tour and for a domestique, like myself, I’m normally working for others,” said Bauer, who broke down in tears after the finish of the stage won by Norway’s Alexander Kristoff.

“This was my first chance to be up the road and with the change in the wind and the weather, me and Martin realised we had a chance for the win.”

Swirling winds and tough weather, with heavy rain and storms, as well as multiple roundabouts in the final kilometres, made it hard for the chasing pack. The duo had a 13-second lead with one kilometre left and had started the usual cat-and-mouse mind game to win a two-man sprint. Bauer was fresher than Elmiger but was missing the  necessary few drops of juice to go all the way.

“I faked to be tired but felt I had more punch left. I left it until 400 metres to go. I thought I had it,” said Bauer. That’s when the peloton, with sprinters speeding at over 60 kph, whizzed past him. “I thought I had it but then I realised in the last 50 metres, that I had nothing,” he said.

Bauer, like other riders in the Garmin-Sharp team, had his leash loosened after American Talansky, who had an outside chance of a podium finish before the start of the race, withdrew with back pains last week.

But before he could fight for the stage win, Bauer had to jockey for a spot in the breakaway. “A break is not just a group of people who are stronger than the other 180 riders and they just ride away. It’s a shuffle at the start of the stage, it’s a positioning thing, it’s a motivational thing after two hard days,” said Bauer.

“A lot of people wanted a sprint finish but for us it was important. After losing Talansky and not really having many stages in the last week that suit, today was a day we wanted to gamble that a break would stay away. It was so close but so far.”

Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali retained the race lead by four minutes, 37 seconds ahead of today’s rest day.